Antill was innate inside Sydney, New South Wales around 1904, and was trained in music at [http://www.cathedral.sydney.anglican.asn.au/music.asp St. Andrew's Cathedral Choir School]. Upon allowing a school around 1920 he became apprenticed to New South Wales Government Railways. He left a railways 5 years late to learn good-whale at a New South Wales Conservatorium of Music under Alfred Hill. When he graduated he played inside two a NSW State Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and from either 1932 to 1934 he toured with the J.C. Williamson Imperial Opera Company.

Within 1936 he became assistant Music Editor by owning a ABC. He remained by owning a ABC until his retirement within 1968, having taken higher a position of ABC Federal Music Editor meanwhile.

His best known act, Corroboree, was number 1 performed as a concert suite around 1946. He depending his compositiin on the really Corroboree, which he witnessed around 1913 at La Perouse in Sydney. He got designed a act as a ballet, but it was non performed in and of itself until 1950.

Around 1971, Antill was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to Australian music. Inside 1985, the month prior to his dying, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Creative Arts from a University of Wollongong.